The point of this post is not to sound “Piper-ish” as in John Piper, rather I was looking at Ps. 119 and began to find verse after verse (over 30) concerning how emotions attached to the word of God. David (or whoever wrote the Psalm, it is not credited to anyone) is provoked to Hope, Delight, Longing and Joy over the word of God. He hates everything that goes against the revealed word of God. His emotion state was bound to the word of God in his life. Amazing.
In the next post I will actually deliver the verses that talk about the writer’s emotions, but for now, let’s just talk about Delight in the word of God. Emotions are, in themselves, a neutral thing. Nothing is wrong with hate…if we hate the right thing. Nothing is wrong with love…should we love the correct thing. Slight sidebar, LUST is okay…if directed to your own wife or husband. A man (by man I mean male or female) should be known not only by what provokes them not only to excitement, delight, joy, longing and so on, but also we disdain, what we hate, what steer clear from and detest. For example, I love my wife and daughter. That means that if my wife wanted to divorce me, I would hate it. If my daughter were molested later in life I would hate it. If A is opposite of B, then I cannot love both A and B.
The writer of this Psalm, we will just call him David for now, hated falsehood and love the Law of the Lord. It was his delight. It was his longing both day and night. He loved the righteous word of God. If my little statement of logic above is right, if he loved the word of God, he hated evil. Loving the word of God is about loving the word of God, but also hating evil. It is not simple abstaining from evil, but hating the very presence of it.
Filed under: 1 | Tagged: delight, word of God
